Our Oceanfront Property Hunt

Our move to the east coast has opened up all kinds of opportunities for us, but there is one that we never expected…

In June of last year, we received an inquiring email about being a part of a new TV show, and we responded with a quick yes. While Pete and I have never aspired to be on TV, we’ll very rarely turn down an opportunity for an entirely new experience.

After a written interview and then a video interview with producers, we were selected to be a part of a new real estate TV series on A&E called Oceanfront Property Hunt. The premise is like many other real estate shows you’ve seen: View three properties and choose one. This time, however, all the homes would have an oceanfront view.

The first question people ask us is: But wait, weren’t you already moved into your new house? Why yes, yes we were. And that is one of the quirks that are common on these sorts of shows (we’ve had several friends on House Hunters International who can corroborate this) – the houses that participants end up selecting are the ones they already live in. 

Weird? Yes. And if you watched our episode, you’ll be able to see if we’re any good at lying or not as we toured our own house! As much as we still are in love with our century home a year later, it’s pretty hard to replicate the awe we felt when we first saw it. And of course, the job of the editors is to make sure that you, the viewer, are left perplexed by which house we’ll choose (and they did a good job of that).

But that’s not the only funny part of the whole process! We couldn’t help but make a list of some of the behind-the-scenes secrets of our episodes that you might find interesting. And because we didn’t have to sign an NDA 😉, here they are…

• We were told that 1 in 7 of the people/couples interviewed made the show! I’m guessing that our unorthodox lifestyle helped us make the cut. 

• The show found us because they first contacted our actual real estate agent (Colin Crowell) and he put forth a list of some of his recent clients who fit the bill. So it was great to work with Colin again, and the weekend before we started filming, he had us over for dinner so we could talk about how we’d make the experience fun.
  
  When we first walked into his house, I noticed that he had a World’s Best Boss mug in his kitchen, which made me wonder if he was a huge fan of The Office, like we are. Turns out, he is! So the three of us made it our mission to try and include a line from The Office into filming. We tried three times, and one made it.
  
  For those of you that aren’t diehard fans like we are, it happened as we were touring the third house. When we entered the mudroom, there was a large dog bed on one side that Pete laid down on, and I said “Look, he fits perfectly!” In season 4, during the Dinner Party episode, this is what Jan said to Michael as he curled up on a bench at the end of their bed. Success!

• We are kind of shocked that one of the key things we discussed when filming our episode wasn’t included. We talked a LOT about coastal erosion, and that we didn’t want a house that was too close to the water. With rising sea levels, this is a real concern for people in Nova Scotia, and we’re surprised that our conversations on the topic weren’t included at all.

• “It’s nice to work with couples who love each other,” one of the crew members said on the first day of filming 🥹 It’s always nice to hear that! But it also makes me curious about what other episodes were like to film!

• In the opening scene, it shows me searching property listings, and Pete making lunch. Pete very adamently wants you to know that he would NEVER use such terrible ham to make sandwiches. He was pretty offended by that and almost refused to use it when shooting the scene. 😂

• We were thrilled that Pete was able to wear a Trip Chaser t-shirt while filming! They were otherwise quite strict about what we could wear – there were guidelines to follow, plus we always had to have a second outfit on hand during filming in case one was rejected. The day we toured our house, our realtor’s shirt was rejected and he ended up wearing one of Pete’s.

• Of course, we had to make sure our house was clean before the filming crew arrived. One place I didn’t think I’d have to worry about was our closet…and then they made me open the door to show it. Please don’t judge us for the mess.

• We didn’t pay $450,000 for our house. The price had to be adjusted to meet the current market so that it was comparable to the others. (But it is nice to know that it has appreciated a good chunk since we bought it.)

• If you’ve been following our story about moving here, you’ll know that we actually lived near Truro first for 6 months before moving into our new home; never did we rent an Airbnb in Port George while hunting for our house. That Airbnb is actually owned by our realtor, and is pretty cool because it’s a converted church!

• Because we had already been living in our house for over a year, yes, that was all of our stuff inside. We took down or changed out some personal stuff before the crew arrived – i.e. we have a gallery wall with travel photos in the hallway upstairs but swapped them out for some quickly printed nondescript photos of Paris. Before filming started, there was actually one person on the crew who was responsible for going through every room and making sure there were also no art or brand names visible. Many months later, and we are still finding logos covered by tape on electronics, puzzles, etc.

• We were completely soaked when standing outside our house to talk about the pros and cons of it. Partway through I asked to put on a jacket but wasn’t allowed because it would break up the continuity of the scene. Thankfully, it was the very last scene we had to shoot for the show, so a warm bath was waiting for me after.

• We had some input on where our “decision scene” would be filmed, and we were thrilled when they agreed to go to Spurr Brothers. We are there frequently for fresh local produce and their very delicious ciders, plus the owners and everyone who works there are wonderful people.

Overall, it was a fun experience and went very smoothly. We enjoyed meeting everyone involved, and are glad we took a chance on this totally new experience (even if is completely cringe-worthy to watch ourselves on screen).

~ Dalene

If you want to watch the episode, it is now streaming here. You need to sign in with a supported cable or streaming TV package that includes A&E in your channel lineup. It is also available to purchase on Apple TV.